Elf Boy's Friends - I

Chapter 2

The Capital

The next morning, the mismatched couple showered together, which led to more than a little grab ass fun, before going down to breakfast. Aodh sported a hickey on his neck plus bruises on his butt cheeks from Finn's firm grip. Bare-ass naked as the wir was, the evidence of their energetic lovemaking was visible to all. As for the young giant, he had a goofy grin on his face.

The count was just going in to breakfast. He nodded over at Finn and remarked, ever so casually:

"I can see that you got over your fears about Aodh and love bites and all!"

Finn smiled shyly and winked at Aodh.

Klarendes his two sons were already at the table. Klarendes introduced the giant to Eborn, his second son, a nice looking lad a couple of years younger than Artor whose looks favored his father even more than his older sibling.

Picking up on their cue the two youths waved cheerily and quipped in tandem:

"I am the heir."

"And I am the spare."

Finn grinned at what was obviously a very old joke and a regular part of their schtick. Was everyone around there a comedian or what?

The count and the young giant wore light silks against the tropical heat though Aodh and Klarendes' sons went naked.

"In the Commonwealth so many of your young males typically parade around without a stitch on both in the country and in the towns. With us Frost Giants, casual public nudity is much less common. Our homeland is quite cool. We get snow in winter and ice forms on still water though never in flowing streams and rivers."

"That said, we have no problem with nudity in our sweat lodges. In the antechamber we scrub with soap and water and douche. In the sweat lodge proper we pour water over heated stones to generate steam which fills the room and promotes perspiration. We also gently brush the skin with bundles of fresh birch twigs with their leaves still attached to further open our pores. I know that sounds weird to outlanders, but it is actually quite refreshing. The best part is afterwards when you immerse yourself in the plunge pool. Actually most people wade into the cold water gradually rather than jump straight in, which can be quite a shock."

"And that is what passes for creature comforts among Frost Giants?" Taitos asked skeptically.

"Here in the Commonwealth, we long ago gave up nudity taboos as utterly pointless. The three habitable continents on Haven straddle the equator so the climate ranges from subtropical warmth to intolerable heat in the Hot Lands along the equator. Young males work the fields, exercise, and train in the nude, partly for practical reasons but also as a courtship display, to show off the trim taut bodies they have so recently grown into. Nudity is quite common among the sentient races save the dwarves or dwarrow, as they call themselves, who dwell in caves and caverns which are dark and cool though never actually cold like your land."

Artor added.

"I do dress up when on duty as a Hand of the Commonwealth. Sometimes it is a simple loincloth though more typically silk trews and shirt much like yours along with a weapons belt."

"How long have you been one of these Hands?"

"Only three years now plus a year before that as a trainee. I finally persuaded Father than being his heir might be my duty and my destiny but it was not a life's work. It will be centuries till I inherit, the gods willing, if they actually exist. Meanwhile I have to contribute, to work at something, not loll around like a some rich wastrel. Father's own adventures as a very young man at the side of Balandur inspired me to try out for an appointment as a Hand. My gift of firecasting did much to recommend me, but I still had to train hard, earn my place, and prove myself worthy of trust."

"You see the Hands are the chief trouble-shooters for the Commonwealth. As plenipotentiary agents of the state, our authority can override that of any civil official or military officer. The Hands were accountable for the actions only to the Chief Hand, Baron Jarmond, and the Ruling Council. We have a reputation for being incorruptible, deadly in combat, and decisive in removing any threat to the well-being of the state, whether it be a spy, a corrupt governor or a crime lord. No one cares to cross a Hand."

"Of course, as a journeyman I myself do not wield full authority. Oh I can act on my own freely enough, answerable only to my chain of command, but I cannot override civil or military authority. Not yet anyway. Also once I am promoted, the Commonwealth's war wizards will teach me how to throw white fire. All of them can do it even though only a third of them have the magical gift of firecasting. My father learned how to do it on his own the day he went into a killing frenzy on a battlefield, which saved our militia from a crushing defeat."

"Oh? Can I ask what happened Lord Klarendes?"

"That is not a day I remember fondly. My first lover, the blacksmith's son Ahndray died that day. A hairy barbarian with a two-handed sword shattered his skull, spraying brains and blood and bone chips all over me, my armor, my face. That final horror set off the eruption of emotion that had been building for days, a psychic storm made up of pain and fear, grief and rage, numbing fatigue and loss of hope, but it was the death and desecration of my lover that finally drove me into a killing frenzy.

Screaming my anguish I unleashed my will on the barbarian horde, setting fire to the tall grass they stood in, igniting their clothes, their greased hair, and the leather coverings of their wooden shields. I stalked back and forth like a fire demon, casting great balls of fire or burning streams of flame, laughing and cackling and hooting, utterly deranged, as the flames consumed the barbarians amid horrid screams and cries for mercy. But I had no mercy in my heart that day. I still don't, not for them, though I do have regrets, especially about the pleasure I felt in killing them."

After I came to my senses, I saw what I had wrought. Their dead bodies were hardly recognizable as human. Cloth and hair act like wicks for the body fat that melts from flesh at those temperatures. I had turned living men into human candlesticks. All that was left were piles of disarticulated bones burned black."

"The psychic backlash nearly killed me but it also opened the channels of my mind that control my gift. Since then I have been able to throw White Fire which nothing can resist. The strongest armor or stone wall simply disintegrates under the fury of that burning, its substance joining and strengthening the effect.

[Not to be confused with blood plasma, White Fire is subatomic plasma, an intensely hot ionized gas which modern physicists call the fourth state of matter. Plasma is the most abundant form of matter in the universe. The stars including the sun are mostly made of plasma. ]

"That is quite a story, Count Klarendes. "You are a dangerous man. No wonder that raid on Elysion failed so miserably."

"Show him the hand." Aodh urged Artor.

"Oh, right. The hand. It's both a signal and our credentials. We Hands identify ourselves by triggering a small magic. These days it makes our entire hand glow with a pearly white effulgence. We use it not only as a credential but also for task lighting and to send signals in the dark, flashing the same code used by military heliographers. We don't actually flash the light on and off, we simply cover or uncover the shining hand with the other one.

"I see. Say, are those Molossian hounds I hear barking by the kennels?"

"Yes, they get excited like that when its time for a feeding. Would you like to visit them?"

"Sure. Molossians are the most popular breed in our homeland, not only as hunting dogs or to protect livestock from dire wolves, but as household pets. They are great with kids. As children we wrestle with them. To humans Molossians are gigantic. To Frost Giants they are just the right size."

Later Aodh took Finn over to the high cliffs from which a scenic waterfall fell into a pretty lake. It was the site of a popular resort which provided employment for many locals.

"Er, Aodh, I'd like to see you transform. Is that OK?"

"No problem."

In seconds, the pretty boy-toy Finn had bedded turned into a sleek black panther. Aodh ran around a bit, reared up and slashed the air with his laws, snarling to look fierce. Then he morphed back into the Aodh Finn knew.

"Wow! I had no idea you could change so fast, or that the change was like you were melting from human to cat and back again. And that was quite a horizontal leap you took a moment ago."

"Yes, the legs of a panther are proportionally the longest of the big cats. Even your normal tawny panther can jump say forty feet (12 m) horizontally and nearly half that vertically. With my magically enhanced strength I can do much better than that."

"In fact, that was how I took out that Frost Giant during the raid years ago. A pair of them snuck up on Taitos while he was busy killing centaurs. I don't know if they even saw me at his feet crouched low atop the watch tower. Anyway, the giants thought they could take Taitos unawares. The one in front looked over to his companion with a predatory grin. That moment of inattention was when I launched myself over the gap and attacked. I ripped his face off and slashed his throat open before he threw me against a wall breaking some of my ribs. Taitos unleashed White Fire on him and cut him in half before he could bleed out."

That night Aodh slipped into Finn's bed for the second and last time. It seemed that his fling with the beautiful Aodh would be limited to those two trysts. The attraction between the tiny wir and the strapping young giant held the fascination of the exotic for both parties. Aodh had never had sex with a Frost Giant nor Finn with a boy who was a wir-panther. Having scratched that itch, henceforth they would simply be friends.

Their journey to the capital of the Commonwealth proved uneventful though intensely interesting to the young Frost Giant who had as yet seen little of the world. The way led southeast across the Eastern Plains to the garrison town of Dalnot, then west along the military road through the mountains to the walled town of Bled. Their pace was slow for Aodh had to travel on foot for no equine could bear the touch of a feline like himself. Finn also went on foot. Adult Frost Giants are simply too massive for horses so the younger ones never learn to ride. A notion popped into Aodh's head:

"I think the only mount that could carry a full-grown Frost Giant would be a brontothere."

Finn's puzzled look lead the young wir to elaborate.

"A brontothere is a huge beast, looking like an armored one-horn or rhino, only as tall at the shoulder as a Frost Giant. Unlike the rhinos, their two horns point forward and are composed of bone and set side to side over the muzzle. Bizarre in the extreme. They are highly intelligent, nearly sentient in fact, and generally of placid temperament. But if they perceive a threat or they get angry, well the charge of a herd of brontotheres is virtually unstoppable. My druid friend Dahlderon calls them the juggernauts of the jungle."

Klarendes and his son did ride horses, their saddles equipped with the newfangled stirrups that gave them a much more secure seat than the old-fashioned pronged saddle. Previous generations of riders had had to wedge their hips into one of those old-fashioned horned saddles. Stirrups had been invented only a couple of decades earlier but had quickly become universal, especially in the cavalry.

A rider could brace himself or even stand up in the stirrups and swing a sword with his full strength, confident that he would not fall off his horse. Ever better, stirrups let a cavalryman wield a lance without getting pushed off the back of his horse by the impact with his target. In the old days a rider held a light spear overhand trying to stick it into an enemy or threw a javelin. These days the rider couched the shaft under his right arm and guided the spearhead with his grip on the shaft. In a charge, the stirrups concentrated the full weight and momentum of both horse and rider to the point of the lance with irresistible effect.

Once they reached the town of Bled just west of the mountains the travelers took a public coach to a port on the great river. From there the party of four took a riverboat downstream to the capital where they found lodgings at a government guest house.

While Klarendes contacted the authorities Aodh and Artor showed the young emissary the town. As during their entire trip, Aodh remained in the nude though Artor donned a loincloth once they reached town. The sightseers took in the chief points of interest then headed for the last one on the itinerary, which lay on the other side of a large park laid out with lush lawns and copses of trees and plantings of flowers and ornamental shrubs.

A group of nude youths were sailing pie tins to each other, a game which the martyred elf-boy Randell had introduced to the Commonwealth. It had caught on fast. The game, or sport if you will, could have been designed to display the youthful male body to advantage as the participants ran and jumped and flung the pie tin to each other, as Aodh explained to Finn.

Suddenly Aodh realized that the young giant was not attending to his words but was looking off to the right at another group playing the same game. He gaze was fixed on a pair of slender blond beauties, identical twins by the look of them. Like many males of the sentient species dwelling on Planet Haven, Finn had an eye for a pretty youth, and these two were among the prettiest with cute fine-boned faces, their heads crowned with cornsilk blond hair. The total effect was incredibly sexy.

Once Aodh realized that the boys who had mesmerized Finn were his old friends and lovers Jemsen and Karel the young wir waved to get their attention.

"You know those blond boys?" Finn asked.

"Intimately!" Aodh replied with a smug look on his face. Then he realized what was going on. Finn was smitten.

"Fancy blond boys do you, Finn? Well those are two of the best. Hi fellas," he added as the twins ran up and hugged him. After they pulled apart, Jemsen asked:

"So who is your handsome friend here, Aodh?"

"Why don't I just let him introduce himself?"

Finn's silence puzzled Aodh so he turned his head to look at him. The way the young giant stared at the twins said it all. Yep, Finn had it bad. Artor wasn't slow on the uptake either and threw a wink to the young wir.

"Er, yes, of course," Finn stammered as he realized he had missed his cue. "I am Finn, Finn Ragnarson of Varangia. You can only be the legendary twins Jemsen and Karel."

"In the flesh!"

"And all of it on display!" Artor noted naughtily, which earned him a frown from Jemsen.

"What? Just trying to help." Artor said defensively. The twins just shook their heads at their friend's brazenness.

In a few sentences, Artor outlined what had brought his party to the capital.

For their part the twins explained that they had partnered with a printer to publish a series of individual maps and a comprehensive atlas of the borderlands, publications aimed at travelers and traders. Using different dashed lines, their maps highlighted the main roads and described their manner of construction. The maps classified each road for their suitability for foot, hoofed, or wheeled traffic. For river routes, they offered depths at high and low water, the span between between riverbanks and the width of the useable shipping channel. Their maps also showed the locations of mines, quarries, and other industries and provided a gazetteer of place names. That work was so well in hand that the twins had taken the day off or some fun with local friends.

As the twins chatted away, the young giant marveled at their physical beauty. Of fully human stock, the brothers were of medium height, blond, slender, and incredibly cute. The small tattoos on their left shoulders showed they had been recognized as both elf-friends and dwarf-friends. Either folk would automatically extend their hospitality and protection to them. From what he had heard about them, the twins were not only brothers but lovers, comrades in arms, and each other's best friend.

"Are you guys up for a game?" Karel asked.

"I'd like to play" Finn ventured uncertainly but I don't know how."

"Don't worry. It's all in the wrist." Karel assured him. "You just flip the pie tin to the next fellow. I'd be glad to show you how."

"You have to take your clothes off first." Artor observed mischievously. "You play this game in the rude nude."

"That is not actually in the rules, but everyone does play that way." Aodh assured him. "Look, you and Artor can hang your clothes on this low branch.

"Uh, OK. What the heck." Finn said as stripped off to reveal a strongly built body.

Like many of his race, Finn had very little body hair save in the usual three places. Nor did he have anything to be ashamed of down there either.

Just then a couple of young ladies in colorful skirts and blouses walked by, slowing down to eye the attractive young males. Artor straightened and returned their gaze, raising his eyebrows interrogatively, but they were not interested in him. One literally sneered at him. Chagrined at the snub he seethed till he saw the girls appreciatively eyeing the young giant and his endowment.

"Hi there, big boy." one of them said.

Grinning predatorily Artor called out:

"Sorry girls, that one is already taken. By them," he added pointing to the twins. He laughed as they tossed their heads and left in a huff. Meanwhile poor Finn blushed red with embarrassment.

"That was not nice," Jemsen remonstrated.

"You are right, of course. What I did just now was unkind. Well-deserved, mind you, but unkind."

"Don't mind him. Sometimes Taitos' first born is just impossible." Jemsen assured Finn who nodded then asked both twins:

"What do you say if after the game we get a meal at a fancy victualing house then maybe go out on the town for dancing and drinks."

"Fine by us," Jemsen said. "We can try several night spots in Twinkle Town and see which ones you like best."

Artor rolled his eyes and was about to comment on that suggestion but subsided under Aodh's glare.

So they turned their attention to the game. Finn quickly realized that it was harder than it looked. Only the throw was 'all in the wrist' as Karel had assured him. Still it had been pleasant when the slender blond youth had taken him through some dry runs, their nude bodies pressed close while Karel guided his right arm and wrist. Finn mastered the throw fairly soon, but his size made him slow compared to Aodh.

"How the hell can those three move so fast, Artor? They are so quick and nimble, it is uncanny."

"Uncanny is right, Finn. Or rather it is magic at work. Aodh is a wir with more than double the strength you would guess from his size. Druidic magic conferred longevity, perpetual youthfulness, and keener senses on the twins. Over time it doubled their strength too. Now none of them is as strong as you are, but they have less than half the body mass to move. The twins are nine inches shorter than you and are slender. You are muscular. As for Aodh, he is a skinny kid who stands just five foot zero. "

"Ah. Now I understand."

A brief visit to a public shower left the youths squeaky clean and smelling fresh. The twins donned white linen kilts which set of their sun-bronzed fskins perfectly.

After a fine meal and a pleasant post-prandial walk, Finn asked:

"So what is this Twinkle Town? Is it close by?"

"Yes it is quite close. Twinkle Town is a cluster of dancing and drinking establishments favored by those who fancy pretty boys and by pretty boys who favor being fancied."

"The twins want to show you off, Finn." Artor explained. "In these parts, you are quite the catch."

"I am?"

As Aodh and Artor split off from the would-be lovebirds, a very much amused Artor remarked to Finn:

"I leave you now to the tender mercies and voracious sexual appetites of those legendary lovers, the twins Jemsen and Karel."

"Not to worry, Artor. We'll bring him back alive." Karel assured him.

The next few hours were a whirl of dancing, drinking, and sexy bodies swaying and rocking rhythmically to the beat of a band. Engrossed in each other, the three youths kept themselves to themselves.

"That is so unfair," a voice from the crowd grumbled. "All three of them are walking wet dreams, but they have eyes only for each other."

After which the twins took their new friend to their rooms.

"Nice digs, guys," Finn remarked looking around at the comfortable though unostentatious appointments of the twins' lodgings. Are you a pair of rich kids like Artor?"

"Hardly, just country boys who got lucky. For one thing, there are our business ventures, like the maps and the improved pie tins soon to go on sale. We designed ours with a more aerodynamic shape which is also easier to grasp, so we think guys will pay the small price for a better experience. We really got lucky when we hooked up with Balandur for various adventures. In his will he bequeathed his landed estates and personal effects to his brother but split his financial investments among the two of us, Aodh, and our druidic friend Dahlderon. The funds were held in trust by Klarendes till we reached our twenty-fifth birthdays a year or so ago."

"You two don't look a day over eighteen."

"No we don't and we won't for centuries to come thanks to druidic healing magic. It was our reward for contributions to the Commonwealth, humans, the other races, and to the biosphere in general."

"Yes I can see the small tattoos on your left shoulders that mark you as both dwarf-friends and elf-friends, rare honors indeed taken singly but you won both. You two must have had some adventures."

"That we did and then some," Karel affirmed. "A word of advice though if you are hankering for adventure. As our mentor Balandur once observed 'Adventures are dangerous and uncomfortable and they don't always serve meals on time.'"

"Now that we are alone at last, Finn, just the three of us, why don't we get out of our clothes and make ourselves comfortable."

"Don't mind if I do."

In very short order all three young males were naked and reclining on the bed.

Finn could hardly believe his luck, first Aodh and now these twins. A very different type from Aodh though all three were walking wet dreams. Aodh was cute as the kitten he so much resembled. The human twins were a brace of palomino colts. The brothers were of middle height and blessed with a well-defined musculature. Lithe, boyishly handsome, and very blond, they were utterly alluring with their slender physiques and youthful features.

Is there anything more beautiful than a teenage boy in the bloom of youth? And here there were two of them, identical twins. Jemsen and Karel were not only brothers, but also lovers, comrades in arms, and each other's best friend. The twins might be taken for elves except for the lack of points on their ears. Boisterous and rambunctious they exuded good health and sex appeal.

Finn paired off with the twins, one at a time and had a lot of fun getting acquainted with their boisterous style of lovemaking. Sexually ambidextrous, the twins could top as well as bottom. As males, the twins liked to sink their turgid cocks into a firm round butt, to feel their members grasped and milked and massaged by the moist velvet glove of their partner's innards, to follow the instinctive drive of the male to penetrate, to thrust, and to ejaculate. But they had the most fun bottoming for the young giant. For Finn's part the twins were the best partners he had ever mounted or was likely to.

The trio were up nearly half the night, making love in all possible combinations and positions including a three way. One time, in all that excitement, Karel rolled right off their bed and onto the floor, only to pick himself up and rejoin the lovemaking.

Finn's assignation with the twins was everything he had hoped and lusted for, leaving him utterly wrung out and satiated. For their part, the boys could only wonder at the unflagging potency of their hulking sex partner. Finn was the gift that kept on giving.

Good thing for the thick walls and carpets of the upscale lodging. The tryst of the three young males was a time for the expression of unbridled teenage lust, sexy kids sparking off other guys their own age, romping, stomping, and rocking, their surging hormones rising to an explosion of eroticism and spunk.

Finally tired and spent, the three fell into a satisfying post-coital slumber.

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